Hindsight
by Erik's Champion
Summary: Part 1: Seto watches Yami Yugi depart into the afterlife, and it all feels oddly familiar. Part 2: As they prepare to face off in Battle City, Yami Yugi contemplates everything that has passed between them
1. Wildest Dreams

Don't you dare tell me that this isn't exactly how you always knew that it would end—with your foot on the threshold, your shadow gunning for the door.

You start every sentence with the same smile. Your lips curl up because you know that I've heard of you before.

"I've been waiting to meet you."

"Oh really." I turn my head, but I see only your glow, your robe rustling your ankles, skimming against the floor.

You're always in my peripheral vision.

"Of course. You can't call ka like that without the whole palace clamoring to know your name."

"So you're impressed."

My laughter is a ruffle. Yours is a stone. It belongs underground, entombed and buried.

"I didn't say _that_."

You speak like you're weighing each syllable in gold. Maybe you do. Maybe you write down every word you say in gold and ivory and colored glass and bequeath them to everyone who comes looking for you. Each one comes with its own serial number. Limited edition. You'll only hear this once so you better pay attention.

You look at me like you know that I'm looking back.

"Then, please, my pharaoh, allow me an opportunity to change your mind."

I get the worst headaches. I get into these moods where everything is a mirage and I can't slice out what's real in that deluge.

When it starts I can't see anything. I'm immobile and hyperconscious.

The world bends in your direction. There're beads of sweat running down your shoulder blades and flecks of gold and crimson in your eyes, subsuming me from all sides.

The sun catches in your eyelashes. It's the same shade as your mouth when you tilt it towards mine.

We're the tallest people on earth. We encircle it completely. And it's here where we can finally burst open and disappear.

Your voice cracks against my shoulder then whittles down to a rosy whisper on my neck, a soft opalescent sigh. Your eyes are slipping shut, your arm is sticking to my chest. Your lips are pressed into my ear, but it's not your voice I hear when you caress my hair and say, "That was nice, wasn't it?"

I wake up spitting sand. My sheets are too rough and my walls are too close and the night buzzes with some kind of stupid cold silver static sound.

I stomp everywhere. My neck is sore.

I squint at the sky, try to keep you from the winds and the storm clouds.

"Seto, when this is all over—I will find you." You talk like dust now. Like the stuff that dyes the sky purple during sunsets. "I know that the soul has a way of remembering what the body has left behind." Even your eyes have bruises when you look at me. "When our spirits walk the earth again, will you remember this? Will you go looking for me?"

If my arms were any tighter I would dig straight through you. I would cut you in half.

"Of course."

Then the weight in my hands becomes refraction.

You always leave me with the same smile.

Waking up I'm blocking my ears and stumbling around in a blindfold. I'm walking on stilts one thousand feet off the ground. I'm careening and caving and I'm trying not to listen to the silence that follows my footsteps and I'm trying not to wonder why you even bothered showing up at all.

I would have preferred a rain check. Something slick and vague. "Sorry, something else came up.

"I hope you didn't waste too much time waiting for me.

"Maybe next time we'll make it work."

None of these precious little pinky promises where our reflections shake hands and exchange pleasantries and pretend like they can walk and talk and cogitate while you have your fingers crossed behind your back and I am pounding. Trying to catch your attention through a pane of one-way glass.

The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service.

So I never have been very good at keeping my promises. But guess what? Neither have you.

You forgot me first.

You got off easy. You were always unencumbered.

You made me outlive you.

Twice.


	2. Out of the Woods

In gym class Yuugi learned that most recipients of CPR come away with broken ribs. I've often wondered about that. I have wondered how many patients regain consciousness, then reach for the ache in their chest, slowly coming to the realization that someone has acted upon their unconscious body and broken it back into life. How badly does that hurt?

Once again, I've found myself facing you.

"Yuugi—put away your concern for your friend and come face me!"

How long ago was it that you dared me to send you spiraling down into the dirt, limp and withered as a collapsed lung? "Yuugi—" You ground your teeth on this name that we'd forgotten isn't mine. "Kill me! Slit my throat with your final card!" It burned me that you didn't die then and this thought rose like a tide inside me—that I should have killed you when I still had the chance.

How long ago was it that we were locked together within your nightmares, festering, sickened by the sound of each other's breathing? And again I had this thought—that I should have killed you sooner. And why did I hesitate?

Because with your eyes stretched open and your face a strained pallor, with your arms hanging limp at your sides, I saw something that felt more familiar.

How long ago was it that you chased me outside the city walls, screaming "Pharaoh" like you could spit boiling water and I refused to run away from you, not now, not even when the sight and the sound of you made me my body quiver? Why did I not run? Why did I insist on facing you?

Seto. Because it was not that long ago that you were unashamed to fall upon me, to whisper my name over and over and over while we lay side by side, our skin black and blue and silver in the moonlight.

It was not that long ago that I learned to love to watch you wake. I refuse to surrender the way you looked up at me with eyes so full, so soft, and not yet fully focused.

And I refuse to surrender the memory of my mouth on your shoulder, watching the sunrise, breathing shades of yellow and pink, and knowing that everything fragile could withstand eternity. Knowing that we could always tilt back our heads and feel our faces in the sun.

 _Seto_. His teeth were too tall for your mouth. His tongue was poison burning down your throat. Your legs and your arms were dead and buried and they hated me. I can admit it now—I was afraid. But I swore that I would not surrender you. I couldn't kill you then.

How long ago was it? I have few landmarks with which to measure the passing of time.

How long ago was it?

"It's hopeless, Yuugi." You flash a card before my face. "Why don't you just surrender _now_ and _save_ yourself the embarrassment of _losing_ to me?"

Kaiba. Don't you feel the crush of the wheel of conflict that turns over us and turns us over, like the surface of the earth? Can't you see that we're the rim and not the axle?

Are your ribs still broken?

How badly does it hurt?

"Kaiba, if you wish to defeat me you must first conquer the hatred that corrupts your heart!"

Kaiba. Spit out the demon in your mouth that wants you dead and choke it.

It was not that long ago that there was only one person living inside of you. But, in those days, with your arm wrapped around my waist, how could we have known that we were marching towards our cliff-face ruin?

We should have run faster. We should have known that there would always be something to run from. We should have sat longer in the sun. We should have spent more time licking juice off each other's fingers. We should have known.

But, Seto, there is one way in which I must turn my back on you—and hesitate again. I will not be your spirit's pallbearer. I will not applaud your quiet death. And if your body should seek to fight me and urge violence upon itself, then—do not doubt that I will break it again.


End file.
